Annan opposes US exemption from international justice

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The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has urged the Security Council to oppose renewal of a resolution that would shield US troops serving in UN-approved peacekeeping missions from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

Mr Annan noted that the US was facing international criticism for abuses against detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and said: "It would be unwise to press for an exemption, and it would be even more unwise on the part of the Security Council to grant it. It would discredit the council and the United Nations that stands for the rule of law."

Mr Annan's remarks added momentum to a campaign by supporters of the war crimes court to defeat the US-sponsored initiative that is due for renewal on July 1.

The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said the US would press the council for renewal. The resolution, first adopted by the council two years ago, applies to "current or former officials" from countries that have not ratified the treaty establishing the court - which includes the US - and exempts them from prosecution before the court for crimes committed in UN-authorised operations. The council expressed an "intention" to renew the resolution each year "for as long as may be necessary".

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"It should be renewed the way the council said it would," Mr Boucher said.

China has threatened to veto the resolution, citing concern that it could be used to provide political cover for abuses. Council diplomats say only six countries - Russia, Britain, the Philippines, Pakistan, Algeria and Angola - are expected to support the US, while France, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Benin and Chile have indicated they will abstain.

The debate coincides with the release of a human rights report accusing the US of holding terrorist suspects in detention centres, many of which operate in secrecy, and an admission by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that he ordered the secret detention of an Iraqi suspect held for more than seven months in Iraq without notifying the Red Cross.

Human Rights First, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in a report that secrecy surrounding more than two dozen prisons made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable".

"The abuses at Guantanamo Bay [in Cuba] and Abu Ghraib [in Iraq] cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of the group's US Law and Security program.

Ms Pearlstein said thousands of detainees were being held in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as locations elsewhere that the military refused to disclose.

She said multiple sources reported that there were US detention centres in Pakistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, at Al Jafr prison in Jordan and at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. It is believed some people are being held on US warships.

Meanwhile, a former US Army special forces soldier working as a contractor for the CIA in Afghanistan was charged on Thursday with brutally assaulting a prisoner during three days of interrogations that ended in the Afghan man's death last year.

David Passaro, 38, became the first civilian to be charged in the scandal surrounding abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.